


Victor Nikiforov

by pardonthelitany



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (levels ranging from mild to stab me in the fucking soul wdy), Angst, Anxiety, But with these two idiots, Depression, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Injury, Lack of Communication, M/M, Self-Harm, Sunsets, Though it's more hopeful, Victor POV, all manner of nostalgic and sad shit, post episode 12, prose... what's prose?, storm clouds, that's definitely an accomplishment, there is a happy ending, yakov is definitely important, yuri appears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 11:10:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9232262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pardonthelitany/pseuds/pardonthelitany
Summary: “What do you need, Victor?”Victor Nikiforov comes back to St. Petersburg, back to skating, and back to the person he was before all too easily. He is a god amongst men, a reigning hero, an icon, an idol, and he is justso tired.





	

**Author's Note:**

> UNDENIABLY INSPIRED BY the post-12 metas ([here](http://caramelcheese.tumblr.com/post/155271559453/why-i-feel-that-yoi-betrayed-its-own-narrative) and [here](http://caramelcheese.tumblr.com/post/155460601228/ok-i-know-ive-bombarded-you-enough-but-now) and [here](http://soobaki.tumblr.com/post/155271944321/how-to-make-a-yoi-season-2-wo-ruining-season-1) and [here](http://soobaki.tumblr.com/post/155320335341/what-can-s2-fix)) written by tumblr users [caramelcheese](http://caramelcheese.tumblr.com) and [soobaki](http://soobaki.tumblr.com). Thanks so much for putting all of my frustrations, hopes, and fears into words. (and for also just being pretty awesome people) <3
> 
> (And, oh god, Victor is so much more angry in this that I thought he would be.)
> 
> For all those concerned about the 'self harm' tag, skip to the end notes for a spoilery explanation.

Victor is dreaming. 

_Victor is dreaming._

It must be a dream, he knows, because there is a void in his heart, his life, that doesn't exist anymore. He feels it more poignantly than the ice beneath his skates, than Yakov’s proud smile, than the gawping faces of his rink-mates. Victor is dreaming because this is what he felt like a year ago, but it has been gone for so long, almost long enough to forget. He wakes up in St. Petersburg and the alarm hasn't gone off yet and Yuuri is still sleeping beside him. He wakes up and it is not a dream; it is reality; and he settles back into the pillows and wills himself back to sleep. 

Victor is dreaming; he must be. Victor is dreaming; he wakes up.

——

There is a chilly, aching quality to Yuuri’s smiles that Victor doesn't let himself see. It’s only on the edges, after all, only really visible if you squint, only reflected in the words “it’s a good luck charm” “if I win gold this season” “when I retire” and, Victor’s least favourite, “if we get married.”

He sees none of it, hears none of it. Yuuri smiles brightly at him when he flawlessly incorporates a new combination into his routine, and all Victor sees is the music. It’s an enchanting song, Yuuri’s short program blending seamlessly into Victor’s free skate, and there really is nothing holding them back. 

Yuuri smiles often enough: when Victor remembers to grab milk on the way home from the rink — he gets there later than Yuuri, leaves later, each day — when Victor presses him against the door frame of the wash room, when Victor counts the vertebrae on Yuuri’s spine. Victor smiles back. They are all smiles, all the time.

——

Victor says “I love you” each time Yuuri leaves the bedroom in the morning. It’s an easy thing, a thing he forced himself to make habitual.

He doesn't think it has the effect he intended. 

Yuuri still leaves and Victor still settles in for two more hours, determined to get a requisite amount of rest before returning to the rink. He was never a god, he knows this, though everyone else doubts it. He has hours of choreography to review, hours of push-push-pushing Yuri and Yuuri into the form they deserve, and then he has to work on himself. 

His eyes close and he folds himself into his pillow, trying not to let his exhaustion seep out from beneath his eyelids. Eventually, he knows, he has to work on himself. 

“I love you,” he says into Yuuri’s pillow. Yuuri says it back, every morning, an instinctive, reactive thing, his eyes always surprised, his face always flushed. 

_I love you_ , he tries to whisper to the void. But it’s not true anymore. He thinks back to Spain and twirls the ring on his hand. He loves Yuuri more than the empty spaces he used to hold. He loves him more than that insipid clamouring for more, for better, for the absolute _best_ that had driven him for so long. 

There is nothing left of that caulked over void. It’s been filled, the hollow spaces in him flushed out, overtaken, by something more than himself. 

He searches for inspiration, but he finds none.

——

Skating to him has always been about change, about surprise, about making it _better_.

He doesn't want change. He wants to wallow in his happiness. The alarm goes off, and Victor realises that he wasn’t even dozing, that his dream was nothing more than the spiderweb crack in the corner of his ceiling, that he is fully and completely awake — and, isn't that a surprise?

——

The truth of the matter is that Yuuri doesn't really love Victor. Not the way he needs to be loved — but it is still enough. Yuuri is all the things Victor saw in himself once — he’s anxious, indebted, and earnest. Yuuri skates all of those things, tries to leave them on the ice, to leave them behind. Victor never bothered. He forced them away, embraced a facade of greatness that he could shrug on like just another costume. Yuuri puts his whole being on the ice, and Victor admires that.

Victor has spent twenty years leaving his self behind, cutting it away and freezing the scabs, in order to let the audience live through him vicariously. 

At his very heart, he knows he fooled Yuuri as well, knows that Yuuri buys the facade and revels in it. Yuuri made his idol Victor Nikiforov fall in love with him. Yuuri is going to marry Victor Nikiforov. Yuuri is the luckiest man alive. 

Victor thinks of the Hyatt in Barcelona, the hand brushing his fringe back, the eyes staring into his unblinkingly, so caught up in the enormity of the moment — “I made Victor Nikiforov cry” — and he shudders. 

Maybe he isn’t more than his skating. Maybe he isn’t more than his moments of false honesty — of artistry — on the ice. Maybe the sum of all those broken pieces he skates is what equals his whole. 

Yuuri’s alarm chirps into the silent early morning, and Victor sighs, closes his eyes, pretends to be asleep. He tosses a lax hand in Yuuri’s direction — harder than he should — and he winces. Yuuri doesn't notice, but Victor does, curling around the offending appendage as he shifts in the bed. 

He is silent that morning, and a curious silence receives him, doesn't initiate. 

_Victor is dreaming._

“I love you,” he whispers into the pillow, and he doesn't have to think about it. He does love Yuuri — all of him, every spin and angle and curve, but some days, he wishes he didn’t. 

He wishes he still loved skating. It is not an unfamiliar feeling — he’s wished the same thing for almost a decade. Skating always took everything he offered it and more, and still tried to give something back—his image, his success, his dream.

The door closes with a quite _shisk_ , and Victor settles back in to the pillows. Maybe he’ll skip practice today. He already knows he won’t. There is too much to do.

——

The thing they never tell you about being with someone with mental disorder or illness or neuro-atypicality (or whatever the fuck you want to call it) is the responsibility one feels — not just to help them overcome it or help them shoulder it — but also to help the other hide it. To help them function without the cracks showing.

Every time Yuuri laces up his boots, Victor wants to kiss his skates. Those things are heavy, and Yuuri carries enough around with him. Victor wants to help. He wants Yuuri to know that he’s here. That Victor knows how difficult this is and still respects him — not _despite_ but _because_. That Victor _gets it_.

But all Yuuri wants is silence. 

It’s not what he needs, but it is what he wants. Victor is torn every time. As a coach, his desire is to give Yuuri what he needs; as a boyfriend, a friend, a fiancee (distinction to be decided on any given day by Katsuki Yuuri) his desire is to give him what he wants. He folds every time. Yuuri wants a silent presence, Victor can be that. By his side; stolid; there. It is another shell, another performance. In his mind, he hears the audience swoon for him, call out praise: “Victor Nikiforov is the greatest coach ever” “Vitya is the best support system you could ask for” “Yuuri is so lucky to have Victor by his side.” 

In his mind, though, his own voice clamours for release. _Let me tell you what I think of YOU, Katsuki Yuuri. Let me spell it all out and make it clear. Let me help you believe it. Let me, that idol that fell in love with you, help you._

_Let me. He cries._

_Victor is dreaming._

——

Victor flubs his quad flip in practice one day, and Yuuri just smiles at him ruefully and recommends rest. It has little impact. Victor forces himself to give a conciliatory shake of his head and move on.

The truth is, Victor has always been almost okay with being alone. The worst part about it is that Yuuri probably could understand — he has the ability to empathise beyond anyone else ever. Victor has seen the way Yuuri interacts with his family, his friends, in Hasetsu. Even Yuuko, who understands figure skating, and Minako, who understands competition, don't really see it. There is a separation between being the god-damned best in your field and the world at large. But even more importantly, there is a separation between being the best in your field and still being the kid that people always assumed would be bullied. 

Hiroku sees Yuuri as being innocent. Toshiya sees Yuuri as being in need of protection. Mari sees Yuuri as being in desperate need of friends. His entire family sees him as the victim-turned-victor, despite his failures; and Yuuri sees that as not good enough. 

No success is enough to erase past failures. Victor luxuriated in this reality when he arrived in Hasetsu. Victor saw it as an opening point for their relationship. 

He never got the friends he wanted, never got the praise he wanted. He knows exactly what it’s like to have people look at him and say “sure, you’re good at it” and “if it’s worth it…” and “yeah, but what are you going to do with your life after skating.” He knows what it’s like to face that and say “THIS.” 

“Just this.” 

The worst part about it: Yuuri probably could understand; and Victor has a hard time figuring out whether or not Yuuri deliberately chooses not to. 

Yuuri still looks at Victor as if he were born to do nothing else. Yuuri still treats him as if the ice is Victor’s playground, not his life — honed by practice and hunger and an immense need for satisfaction. Victor flubs his quad flip one day, and Yuuri just blinks, shrugs, and says ruefully, “You need more rest.” 

Victor knows the truth. He doesn't need anymore of anything. He wants more, but need… that passed out of his life so long ago. The ice blurs beneath his vision, and he forces a smile, looks back at Yuuri, and says, “You’re right.”

——

There’s an upstart in the ISU who has very real complaints about Victor skating and coaching within the same division for two different countries. Yuuri reads the letter out loud in a semi-hushed voice, his tone reflecting his confusion — how is it possible that he and Victor Nikifiorov are in the same division? That they are causing some sort of scandal? That there was ever any doubt that Victor Nikiforov would return to the ice as some sort of resurgent Poseidon, there to reclaim his place in all his fury?

Victor stares at the letter and almost smiles. Yakov warned him about this, but Victor hadn't really cared, at the time. Of course there’s a conflict of interest, he thinks. Of course this won’t be allowed. He fills his cheeks, blows out his breath, and thinks about the best part of his day — his golden hour. He is a five time consecutive Grand Prix Gold Medalist. He skated Gold in the Olympics — _twice_ — he is brilliant beyond measure, and he is _done_. 

Now he is a coach, ready to take his two favourite students to the Worlds, ready to lead in a different measure — he is Victor Nikiforov and he is —

“We can fight this,” Yuuri says. 

The sharp look in Yuuri’s eyes is completely lacking in anything relating to sadness. All Victor sees is determination, the same determination that barrels Yuuri across the rink each day, that brought him to St. Petersburg, that has him promising (when he thinks Victor won’t hear) to shatter every World Record there is. 

Victor glances at the letter and sees all potential versions of himself. The truth of the matter is — the version that gets to stay by Yuuri’s side is his favourite. He smiles, fragile and only a tiny bit broken, back. “We can and we will.”

——

Yakov is the first — the only — one to notice.

Victor is not just flubbing his quad flip, anymore. It’s every quad, every time. It’s not just two hours late, it’s three—then four. Yakov watches, his compulsory frown deepening when Victor skates to the boards. 

One night, hyperbolically, Yakov shouts: “Do you even want to be here anymore?” 

Victor closes his eyes, tilts the water bottle back, greedily drinks and drinks and drinks. 

Yakov stammers—recognises his truth and then moves forward—“You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Victor drinks and drinks and drinks. 

“Vitya—” Yakov begins, uncertainly. 

Victor beams at him: big and bright and certain. “Yes, Yakov?” 

Yakov’s hand covers his own where it rests on the boards.

_“You’re the best coach I’ve ever had,” Victor could whisper. He’s never had another one. Yakov pulled him out —no, that’s not quite right—Yakov lent him the braces and the crutches and the rope to pull himself out— of some place he hardly remembers. Yakov pushed him and loved him and supported him. Yakov is the_ only _coach he’s ever had and ever wanted. Victor looks at him and sees all of Russia, all of the approval he ever wanted. Now, that vision makes him flinch, but, for a long while, it was_ everything.

Yakov’s eyes are still as cold and unforgiving as the ice. 

Victor flips his hand and tightens it around Yakov’s wrist. “I’ll be more careful,” he promises. 

It’s sincere, but Yakov doesn't believe him. 

Victor flinches as he prepares to practice another quad toe loop. No one believes him anymore.

——

It shouldn't come as a surprise that that's the same way his domestic bliss starts to shudder apart — but it does.

It’s all “Yes” “yes” “YES” and then Victor’s fingers are twitching inside of Yuuri, and brown eyes are meeting his, and he is pushed away. 

“Victor,” Yuuri begins softly, “What do you need?”

_The same things as ever, Yuuri,_ his could say, _To feel whole, loved. to know that this is where I am and this is where I am supposed to be. To be married to the man I love, to know what the future looks like — and to know that you are in it._

“Just you, Yuuri,” Victor breathes. 

He pulls his fingers out, watching the way Yuuri’s eye lids shudder. It is a cheap ploy, he knows. He knows that Yuuri deserves more. But he also knows what Yuuri expects. 

And doesn't Victor Nikiforov deserve something, too? He thinks as he lines himself up. It’s shallow thrusts at first; he’s still afraid of asking “Can you accommodate all of me?” “Can you love all of me?” “Can you make space in your heart, your body, for all of me?” 

By the end, Yuuri is smiling and gasping his name — not _Victor Nikiforov,_ but just: Victor, and then — Vitya. Vitya. Vitya. 

He is ashes, he is reborn, he is a glimpse at some future that is waiting. He is perfect, that god that everyone expected, and he smiles with the knowledge.

——

Yuri’s gaze is fierce, unforgiving, and Victor wishes he could convince him that his growth spurt is not a gift — not yet. Three additional inches and at least he looks more like the _Ice Tiger_ he always purported himself to be.

“You need to get lower at the entrance and push higher if you ever want to solidly land that quad lutz,” he says, but what he thinks is:

_You need to reconcile yourself and the ice — you need to find purpose beyond perfection — you need to find your soul._

Yuri’s next landing is perfect, accompanied by a resounding whoop and a smattering applause from the usual audience. Victor doesn't say: “there were always more people wanting to watch me” “there was always more to my skates than just technical perfection.” 

Instead he cheers, basking in the delight of his student’s success. Yuri skates up to him and raises an unimpressed eyebrow. 

“Well,” he snaps. “Let me have it.”

Victor sighs, _this is all a dream. It has to be._

He blinks at Yuri who rolls his eyes. “Honest opinion? You’ll never get anywhere if you sacrifice your emotions for technical precision.”

Yuri glares at him and skates backwards to the centre of the ice. “What do you even know?”

Victor agrees with him, but silently. He’ll never really know anything. He has never really lived anything. He is just a shell, cohabiting with someone who adores that shell. He can’t change — if he does — he loses. 

“I know,” he says, meeting Yuri’s eyes. Yuri seems to take him seriously, for just a moment, and that more than anything, makes him ache.

——

When it happens, everyone on the rink seems to shudder at the same time.

Yuuri isn’t there — they take lunch at different times to accommodate each other’s schedules. When it happens, it’s because of a one-off from Yuri, a nod from Yakov, a “fuck them, Viten’ka” from someone in the gallery. 

When it happens, Victor sees it in slow motion.

But that’s not all he sees. 

He sees the next thirty years of his life — he is still young, he knows, only twenty-eight. He sees the routines he’ll choreograph, the programs that might still succeed, the hours he will put forward. When it happens, he sees the future, and he knows, he has to let it happen. 

There's not much he can do to salvage his triple axel, but there is something. He could prevent himself from hitting the ice at quite such a bad angle. He could save himself the pain of a fractured ankle. He could save his career and his future. He could save something. 

But what does it matter? 

Because _Victor is dreaming. This is all just a dream and he will wake up, still unhappy, and still there, on the ice. It’s cold, where he belongs, where he is born to be, but it is his place._

He hears the bones in his leg snap, the real and persistent reminder that he is not everything he was two—five—ten—years ago, and … and he lets go. It’s not really that important anyway. 

The ice shifts before his eyes, a blur in the haze of his pain, and he snaps to, suddenly. He is awake. This is real. This is his life. And it fucking _hurts._

——

That morning, he turned into Yuuri’s pillow, having slept through Yuuri’s alarm for the first time.  


 There is silence there, waiting, and all he hears is the subtle _shisk_ of the door and then nothing.

“I love you,” he breathed into the pillow. But, for the first time in a long time, he thinks he means _I love me_. He doesn't believe it — not yet — but he’s close.

——

There are flashing lights and an ambulance. Victor remembers that much. He also remembers raising his hand to Yuuri as his stretcher is loaded into the back of the truck, and Yuuri’s face turning ashen as their lunch falls from his fingers and he sprints down the sidewalk towards him.

There really isn't much else until later — 

Then it’s all:

“Victor” a hush of breath, a hitch in someone else’s chest “You might never skate again.” 

Victor’s smile is cruel, a reminder, a reminiscence: _this is what you loved of me. This is all you loved of me._

“I heard,” is all he says. 

Yuuri cries and Victor hates it. Yuuri may only love the Victor Nikiforov that was always on display, but Victor loved all of him, every last piece, even the piece that idolised Victor beyond identity. 

He sighs into that void he thought was gone, and feels a stirring — warm desert winds against his chest that prepare him for something — and isn’t that the perfect irony? He can see his skate, for the first time in over a year? He can hear the music, practically see it oscillating before him, etched out by the pain and fear he feels, and he will never get a chance to—

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri chokes out, and the warmth is gone. 

Victor’s hand pries Yuuri’s chin from the mattress. “For what?”

“For everything,” Yuuri cries, dissolving back into that sad heap against the edge of the mattress. 

Victor buries his hand in Yuuri’s hair, prepares himself to speak, but then Yuuri beats him to the punch. 

“For not realising how overworked you were, for not letting you rest, for not supporting you properly, for _not loving you the way that you needed to be loved_!”

Victor blinks, astonished. But, no, he is awake. 

“Why didn't you say anything, Victor?” Yuuri asked, tears welling over his eyelids. “Why didn't you—”

“Say what?” he almost snaps, exhaustion sapping his passion from him. 

Yuuri starts into silence. He stares at Victor, long and hard. And then he sighs. 

His fingers brush the fringe from Victor’s eyes, and Victor can see the tears filling Yuuri’s eyes. 

“I do love you, you know.”

Victor clenches his jaw, doesn't accuse: “Do you?” 

A slow, steady finger traces the edge of his jaw, tips Victor’s face up. “I do love you,” Yuuri repeats.

Victor is still silent. 

Yuuri huffs a laugh. “How can you even be in doubt?”

Victor looks out the window, the sun a sad glimmer against the horizon, just another moment for the masses — himself included — to try to capture. All striations of blues and pinks — just one more forgotten scene for everyone else to photograph and filter and commemorate with their shitty instagram posts. 

Victor’s fingers itch for his phone, but he doesn't know where it is in this post-dream-world.

Yuuri sighs, a grand and heavy thing. 

_Fuck him,_ Victor thinks. _Fuck everything._

——

Victor is dreaming.

_Victor is dreaming._

He wakes up in St. Petersburg in the hospital and Yuuri is sleeping next to him. He wakes up and it is not a dream; it is reality; and he settles back into the pillows and wills himself to _stay awake._

Eventually Yuuri shuffles, reevaluates, and his eyelashes flutter. 

Eventually, Yuuri wakes up. 

Brown eyes meet blue, and Yuuri shoves on his glasses, looking electrified by something. 

Victor cuts him off with a perfunctory slash of his hand. 

“You are not the only person that has suffered,” Victor says. 

Yuuri flinches, and Victor curses to himself. 

He sighs, long and slow. “That is not what I meant.” The damage is done, though, and Victor doesn't know how to recover.

He decides to ask. 

“Yuuri,” he says, as neutrally as he can manage (he’s sure it comes out quite plaintively). “What is it you want from me?”

Yuuri’s eyes meet his knowingly — far more knowledgable than dream Victor ever could have allowed. “I just want you to be you.”

Victor huffs a laugh. “An echo.”

Yuuri raises his brow. 

“You said that once,” Victor murmurs, but what he means is, _you meant that once — before you knew the broken me._

“I still want it,” Yuuri says. “And I want you to talk to me.”

There is a long silence as Victor studies the seamless ceiling of the hospital room. It is so perfect here, so much uninterrupted white, celebrating his greatest sacrifice, his greatest release. 

“Victor,” Yuuri says, his hands fisting on the sheets, his face turning red. Victor directs all attention to him, knowing that this is like their first short program, that this requires everything Yuuri has. “Let’s get married,” Yuuri whispers. “Now.” 

Victor’s heart soars, an albatross again, one that just touched down to scrape some icy reality into its claws, one that never doubted the sky, the sun. 

He blinks at Yuuri, and wants to choke out a “No” a “Yes” a “When.”

“I’ll never skate again,” is what he says. 

Yuuri blinks up at him, incredulous. “Did you want a wedding on ice?” 

There is a long moment of silence, and then Victor is laughing — laughing like he never dreamed of. And Yuuri is laughing with him.

——

Victor has always fallen asleep easily; it’s waking up where he struggles — vacillating between two states seamlessly for his last few hours. Yuuri is the opposite, determined, it seems, to worry himself awake all night, but snapping up in the morning without any trouble. Victor does his best to wear Yuuri out each night, from offering constant commentary on Yuuri’s cooking, to teasing him through movies, to taking him apart and kissing him slowly as he does it. He tries to remind himself to say “I love you” every night, but, instead, he generally just worries about the constant, unending tragedy being written in Yuuri’s head before a switch is flipped and he is asleep.

It doesn't stop his body from curling around Yuuri while he sleeps, doesn't stop Yuuri’s restlessness from waking him, doesn't stop the urge to comfort — even when he’s gone from the world. 

Today, Victor doesn't wake with the alarm, doesn't stumble into alertness with the close of a door, doesn't puzzle over his ceiling until his thoughts snap together with alarming clarity: _I am awake._

Today, it’s gentle fingers in his hair that rouse him, a soft sigh that matches his own when he opens his eyes. Yuuri on this morning is softer than usual, the light is warmer than usual, and there is a hand in his hair. 

He lunges upwards — heart thudding, kisses himself awake against Yuuri’s mouth, and sinks back with a smile.

“You were dreaming. I didn't want to wake you,” Yuuri mumbles, no trace of flush on his face, just the edges of sleep and longing and _love_.

It is static under his skin, the words and all that accompanies them. Victor was dreaming — his entire life was a dream, a fantasy, someone else’s fantasy. Yakov’s. Yuri’s. Yuuri’s. 

Victor kisses Yuuri again, chases the fleeting fears to the back of his mind. Needs to settle, needs to breathe and love and — Yuuri sighs against his mouth, cups his chin, and flutters his fingers across Victor’s cheekbones. 

The truth is, Victor has never needed much. Global validation. An open line of credit at Versace. A constant and affirming ally in the form of a coach/father. A loving public and adoring fans. These are all things he’ll take (and take and take and take). These are all things he’ll use. 

But it’s all just a dream. 

Sure, he’s five time consecutive grand prix gold medalist (actually _six_ times total, but then he didn't really come back into himself until after puberty), he’s won two Olympic golds, and the programs he’s dreaming up now will win twice that — sure, he’s Victor Nikiforov. Sure, his life is dream. 

But he never needed it. 

As for what he wants? The answer is far grander. He wants _everything_. He wants love and life and perfection and success. He wants to sacrifice nothing and gain everything. He wants all his dreams, bottled, and easily accessible. 

What does he need? He’s not sure he really knows. But maybe — maybe all he needs is _himself_. His heart stutters in his chest again, Yuuri’s hands holding him in place as he is spinning away, Yuuri’s teeth scraping his lip as he cracks open. 

He breaks the kiss, and when he sinks back into the pillows this time, he pulls Yuuri with him. 

“Was it a good dream?” 

A hammer to his heart, a gun shot in his golden hour’s silence, the shattering of all his pieces falling to the floor in a sun dappled room. He is dully aware of his ankle hurting, of all the things he has broken over the last few weeks. He hears an echo, reverberating around his skull, telling him to listen, damn it, just listen this time: _I need you to talk to me._

He laughs, tilting Yuuri’s chin up for another kiss. “No,” he says, still giggling, “Not really.”

——

**Author's Note:**

>  **RE: the 'self harm' tag:** Victor injures himself during practice — it's not necessarily on purpose, but he is aware that he could prevent the worst of it and chooses not to. 
> 
> ——
> 
> Guys, listen, depressed Victor is so important to me. This story was born of everything I thought was lost in the narrative conclusions of episode 12. I started thinking about what season 2 meant for our babies, and I just could not wrap my head around it. 
> 
> I meant to do a thousand words on Victor’s thought process beyond the GPF, and I tripped in fell into this surreal landscape where everyone needs a hug (me first) and STILL no one talks. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. Kudos/comments are always appreciated, and if you feel a desire to point out any glaring mistakes/concerns/fuckups, please feel free. 
> 
> I am on tumblr as [burningthegallows](http://burningthegallows.tumblr.com) or [pardonthelitany](http://pardonthelitany.tumblr.com), mood depending. 
> 
> I was and am a poet first. I’m sorry if my continuing failure to properly utilise grammar and punctuation bothers you. (Look, seriously, _look_ at that split infinitive).


End file.
